water water everywhere

For the last couple of days, SLCo has been caught in the throes of an unexpected flood. Because of the very late and heavy spring snowfall which left the canyons’ southern faces deep in snow, coupled with the recent jump to high temperatures, the snowmelt has been at least three times what it normally is this time of year. Big Cottonwood Canyon Creek, with a flood stage of 4.2 feet, hit 4.1 feet Monday night and crested at 4.0 last night; Little Cottonwood Canyon Creek’s flood stage is 5.7 feet, which was easily surpassed by Monday’s crest at 6.29 feet and Tuesday’s 6.1. Homes and businesses have been flooded; many of the backyards of the rich folks who could afford to live creekside have been eroded by the frigid, rushing waters. Luckily, the creeks seem to be going down, at least for now, until the temperatures climb again and/or more thunderstorms move in.  Like, tomorrow, for example.

Also, we have succumbed to neighborhood peer pressure and turned our sprinklers on. We had a repair guy come out to fix a broken sprinkler head and cap off one pipe in the backyard, as well as troubleshoot the system and show us how to program the fancy timer for every third day for fifteen minutes at 1:00 a.m. We really hate even the idea of watering (such a foreign concept coming from Maine where there’s about 40 inches of rain/year) but until we dig up all the sod and xeriscape the front yard, we need to keep up appearances – at least enough so that we’re not the worst lawn on the street.